


The Doctor, My Doctor

by pyalgroundblz (acidtonguejenny)



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Episode: s06e02 Day of the Moon, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-26
Updated: 2012-04-26
Packaged: 2017-11-04 08:20:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/391741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acidtonguejenny/pseuds/pyalgroundblz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor leaves, and then visits.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Doctor, My Doctor

After he left, River sat on her bunk and did not cry. Her eyes stung, and her exhalations were weren't as steady as they could be, but that was all she allowed herself. She shouldn't have been surprised. What had she said to Rory, after all? 

She heard the whining drone of the TARDIS then and swiped at her eyes, smoothed out her face as she looked around her cell, wondering if he'd possibly forgotten something. But the TARDIS that appeared in the corridor, she saw when she looked, was not the one that had just departed. The paint was blue as ever, but the poor girl was a little more worn around the edges, and she seemed to slump a bit where she sat, as if tired. A distinct possibility. 

River started to lay a hand over her diary, preparing to crack it open, but suddenly couldn't summon the will. She was very much not in the mood to discover how much of their history he was unaware of this time. 

The door swung inward and a familiar head popped out. She came to her feet, arms open and waiting as he flickered the sonic at the lock and strode up, humming, to meet her embrace. River felt the comforting shape of _this_ Doctor by her and sighed as a tension so great she had only known a fraction of it left her through her toes. 

"My Doctor," she said softly to his shoulder, letting the double-beat of his hearts confuse her own. 

She wrinkled her nose. "You smell like a volcano," her tone the one that said, you did something fun without me. 

"Funny," he mused. "Rotten eggs, actually. A whole town swarmed by them." He smiled pleasantly when River drew back to twitch a disbelieving eyebrow at him, pinching a wayward curl that hung between her eyes and flicking it to join its fellows. 

"Tell me," she said, asked, as they perched together on her mattress, and he did. River sat with her knees bent, one pulled up to support her chin and partially on the pile of clean laundry, rapt and laughing as he related an adventure as marvelous and tragic as any she knew. The story of how the Doctor saved an island nation from eggs gone smelly and inhabited by parasitic aliens, whose crafts bounced. 

The Doctor in the TARDIS. Her Doctor.

And when he finished, she told him where she'd been up until a few hours ago, as much as she felt was safe, as much as she confidently could. He hmmed knowingly and watched her with those dark eyes in such a way, she knew her careful editing hadn't been worth the effort—knew that in all likelihood he could answer any of her dozens of questions, rules permitting. And of course, they didn't. 

Though usually annoyed by such moments, this once River was so grateful she felt almost weak. 

He knew. Knew, somehow, impossibly enough, what she couldn't say—that a part of her still mourned him, and when she curled up against his side and held him as if he would disappear, he didn't question it. He didn't look at her oddly, or tease her, only pulled the blanket over them both and made her hair a nest of tangles playing with it as she, slowly, fell asleep. 

When River woke two guard shifts later feeling lighter than she had in weeks, she slapped the depression by her in the bed, felt her hair and cursed.


End file.
